Miserable at work - Think Over!!!

Hating your job holds the center stage for a miserable life. What do feel about getting up and heading to work on Monday? Do you find your job unchallenged, unhappy, or not in control? Is your boss the worst person on earth? Does your coworker complain all day long that are uncalled-for? If you continue to face any of these situations, then you will ensure that you will continue to hate your job and feel miserable at work .

There can be several reasons for all that misery. It can be a feeling of being overworked or underappreciated. For some, it might be like being underpaid or trapped into a so-called salary compression situation. As you observe everyone appointed after you make more than you do, it's hard not to feel indignant and resentful. However that only adds insult to injury and only makes you more miserable.

All that is getting even worse in a receding economy where employees are let go, and the ones that get a chance to stay are expected to feel relief at still having a job, however it's a recipe for burnout and stress.

Stress because of overwork and zero rewards and recognition; however is only one reason for the general job dissatisfaction. The appropriate reason seems to be simply a poor fit with the employer that sometimes can be philosophical or personal differences with their employer, director or company or the sudden changes due to mergers or internal shifts, where things have not turned out well for the employees. A new director or supervisor whose leadership 'style' is different with yours can make your life miserable. Likewise, just a plain boring job that may pay well but not a challenge may make your job miserable.

The solution can be, Let us just quit. However, leaving a job is hard. You can call it 'golden handcuffs' syndrome wherein changing jobs becomes a difficult decision and a difficult process.

Below are the ’Three Signs of a Miserable Job’ by Pat Lencioni

Anonymity , wherein employees gets a feeling once they realize that their manager has little or no interest in them as a human being about their lives, their aspirations and their interests.

Irrelevance is a feeling generated when employees fail to see how their job influences the lives of others. Impact can be on a customer, a co-worker, even a supervisor – in one way or another.

Immeasurement is simply an inability of employees to assess their contribution or success towards the organization they work for as they don’t have any means of measuring how well they are doing on a given day or in a given week, other than the subjective opinions of their managers, to gauge their progress or contribution.

The top 5 reasons for being miserable at work are -

• Improper work life balance.
• Continual financial distress.
• Struggling to work with skills and talents that aren't "natural" to them.
• Constant feeling of being undervalued and disrespected.
• Little joy or no positive meaning in the job.

So what do we do about all this job misery?

The primary cause and the potential treatment for this misery exist in the hands of one individual – the direct supervisor. An employee's relationship with ones direct boss is the most important factor to determine employee satisfaction (over pay, benefits, perks, work-life balance etc).

Steps that managers can take to overcome the misery managers:

• have a genuine awareness about the current happenings in the life of his immediate subordinate
• remind them of how their work have an impact on the life and work of others
• help them take initiatives and come out with creative ways to measure and assess their performance.

Why managers generally don’t work around these easy-sounding steps to ensure a satisfied workforce?

• Managers think they are too busy . They see themselves as individual contributors for organizational performance and fail to realize that the most important part of their job is to provide their subordinates with what they need to be productive and satisfied in their jobs.
• Managers have bad memory . They simply forget what it was like when they were a little lower in the designation. They somehow forget the importance of their supervisor, and how taking interest in them, talking to them about their work really mattered and gave them a means of evaluation of their progress.
• Managers are afraid to try . They fear that their employees will take them as being disingenuous, or taking an interest in the personal lives of subordinates might be like stepping into an inappropriate territory. They fail to distinguish the difference between an interview process (wherein no personal questions are asked) and an actual work experience (where employees should be treated like a human being).

Below are few steps for you as an employee to get over the feeling of being miserable at work:

• Stop participation in the conversation with people who always cribs about the company, the management, the customers, and their coworkers. Legitimate concerns that should be addressed are kept aside, if you listen to unhappy, difficult people, as it cannot help but bring you down. Criticisms are contagious . Just move on to steer clear of catching the bug.
• Visit a career counselor or find out about other job opportunities. Find ways to use your current skill set differently, by taking tests with the help of counselor to identify work you might find more exciting. Start believing that you have options .
• If you fail to take responsibility for your own development then no one will ever care about your professional growth and development. Moreover, no one else other than you will benefit out of it. Stop waiting for a non-communicative boss to give you feedback about areas to improve. Simply ask about your performance feedback .
• Stop working for a bad boss . Bad bosses, are just plain nasty acting people, who rarely change without some major transformation event occurring. The event may happen at its pace; however there is no point waiting around complaining about how unhappy you are at work.
• If you are working for a company that lies to its customers and never keeps promises that are made to employees then leave that company as quickly as possible. Since executives and the founder themselves, largely drive such practices hence the breeding ground that enables those practices is a tough one to change. Seek for better and more ethical companies .
• Working for a company that is constantly in danger of going bankrupt can wear out your optimism and enthusiasm. This theory holds true especially, if you are not in a position to have a large impact on the company's budgeting, spending, or financial performance. However do not leave a good company that is experiencing temporary woes.
• No need to feel stuck . There can be end number of reasons why for feeling stuck. Like, your company can be small and there is nowhere to go or you've been passed over for promotion quite a few times because of a lack of education or experience. Seeking additional responsibilities and an expanded job doesn’t motivate you at all. And finally, you’ve sought support from your boss however the problem seems to be insurmountable. In that case if you are ambitious and want to expand your knowledge and career, it's time to go.
• Staying in a work environment that ignores employee suggestions will sooner or later make you question the value of your suggestions and that is toxic to your self-esteem and self-confidence. The solution is, Find a more supportive work environment .
• If you are tired of living pay check to pay check and your current job is never going to pay you more than minimum wage; moreover average raises are in the ten to fifteen percent range annually, then Explore a better paying future .

After considering each of these described situations carefully just ask yourself “Are you settling for less than you can have or be?” If the answer is yes, then follow above practices and of course suggest some more.